


Varg-hamr/Wolf-skin

by undercovercaptain



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Big Wolf Energy, F/M, Inspired by Old Norse poetry, Jon comes back absolutely feral, Jon in the body of Ghost, Norse Mythology - Freeform, Sansa as the Girl in Grey prophecy, Use of kennings, Völuspá (The Lay of the Seeress), book canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28433100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undercovercaptain/pseuds/undercovercaptain
Summary: hamr: the ‘shell’ or ‘shape’ of a person — the physical body, a state that can alter.hugr: what a person really is — the absolute essence, that which can leave the hamr behind.(Or, Jon in the body of Ghost, coming across a girl in grey fleeing north, along the east side of Long Lake...)
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 61





	Varg-hamr/Wolf-skin

**Author's Note:**

> My first Jonsa fic, heavily inspired by all things Old Norse-Icelandic coz I'm a big old nerd and I gotta put my masters to use somehow! 
> 
> (Disclaimer: GRRM's world and characters, I'm just playing in the sandbox.)

***

**_She remembers the war, the first in the world,_ **

**_when they stabbed at Gold-draught with many spears,_ **

**_in the hall of the High One they burned_ **

**_her body._ **

**_Three times they burned the one thrice-born,_ **

**_often, over again; yet she lives still._ **

– Völuspá, 21 –

***

He was running, snow crushing underfoot, soft, and newly fallen, depressing easily, leaving small craters behind in his wake. A harsh wind blew in from the north, its icy breath pricking at a long face, a hot tongue lolling in his mouth, heavy like a stone, between two rows of reddened teeth. His wolf’s heart and his, _beating, beating, beating._

He was hurt before, wounded and ended, many faces swarming, fading with the piercing of flesh, the wound-seas seeping. For they had stolen his breath, had sent up his life, away from him. Sometimes he could still see it, through the eyes that were now closed, could remember the ice that rose above him, could smell a pyre somewhere burning, could see black wings circling overhead, swarming.

Yes, he remembered being there, the other place, though it now seemed so far away. That other place, that other body, the sword-sleep, the sight-paths weeping. The blood that smoked. It wasn’t always so cold. He had been so cold. White snow turning black.

And then he was elsewhere, the body he now called _here_. A wail had ripped through them, the Man and him together. _Again, again, again_ , he had hurled himself against his prison, _trying, trying_ to break free. For they could not keep him fettered, wolf’s wine singing, carrion-flood flowing. He tore the dumb sounds from their throats. And at last, he had run. Down to the lonely land of ridges. Down to the sloping-plains.

They were one and the same now, he ended then began. But that was how it always was. They had always been the same. Man and Beast together. White wolf. White snow.

_Ghost. Ghost. Ghost._

***

**_She saw there wading through heavy currents,_ **

**_men false-sworn and murderous men,_ **

**_and those who gull another’s faithfulest girl;_ **

**_there Spite-striker sucks the bodies of the dead_ **

**_– a wolf tore men – do you know yet, or what?_ **

– Völuspá, 39 –

***

The harm of the sail, the destruction of trees, it cried out, cold and plaintive, so sharp against his face. How long had they been here? Great hulking body circling, hunting, beneath the world’s hall, high silver disk hanging, shining full.

The Wolf’s heart quickened. Hot blood thrumming restless. He paced the ground, white drifts collecting, treading upon the loose teeth of mountains, beneath the falling snow, wandering. Something on it was carrying, the smell of something sweet, of sunlight and roses, the last days of summer.

He ran down to the blood of the earth, deep and blue and still. Ice-rimmed, it cracked beneath his touch; below, the silver arrows darting. Who was out there? He had not seen a soul. Only trees, tall and solemn, whispering in their fissured skins, and once, an antlered beast, between them, then soon enough between his teeth.

It was along a bed of streams, that it came calling. Something scared, someone hunted. On his tongue, he could almost taste it: the exhaustion, the streaming rains, falling from a mournful face. He turned to seek it out, the Man’s heart _beating, beating, beating._

The wind carried it, the gods’ messenger. The shouts, with words that wolf ears do not know. Angry shakers of shining hilts. Through the currents, upon saddle-beasts, they thundered forward, biting-beasts, rabid at their heels. After the sad one, the scared one.

Snow depressed, pawmarks becoming lost behind him, white on white. Her own saddle-beast was staggering, slowing, both their panic rising. He could smell the fear on her skin, could hear, closer now, the fraught wheeze of her breath. But more than that. More than smell, more than sound. Something else. A realisation. A memory. Soft hands running through a sister’s fur. Soft voice rising, drifting through the stone-carved caves of _Home._ Fair jewel of the sky. The song of his childhood. Milk-white. The glittering brow-stones. The hair the colour of holy branch-sorrow. _Kissed. Fire. Lucky._

The Man fought to cry out. _Know you. Found you. Save you._ But the Wolf’s tongue spoke no words. No words. Dumb tongue in a dumb beast’s mouth. He wanted to scream, Man’s mind rebelling, fighting with the Wolf. _Howl! Scream! Shout! Yell!_

But then not fighting. Then they were running. Through the lonely land of ridges. Through the sloping-plains. Down to the ice-edged bed of many streams. Both beasts, one body, Man and Wolf together. Soon to know their quarry.

Too slow, too stupid, too prideful. The unwise claspers of metal. The sword-cloven slaughter-food. His hulking body was fast upon the snow, the white mass hurtling, their terrible surprise so sweet upon his lips, as he tore the shouts from them. First the puny beasts, and then their foolish masters too. Beneath his teeth they fell, one by one. His victory heaps. The breaking of bones. The tearing of flesh. The wound-floods flowing. He fought and fought and fought. For her or for himself? _Both. Both. Both._

The screams of the raven food echoed in his ears, only to then settle like ash, as silent as the mountains. The Wolf’s heart _beating, beating, beating._ From his mouth he let the wound-thaw, the dew of corpses, run and seep into the pure white of the ground, staining the icy stream-water red, carried away by the rushing of currents. The carrion channels. The frightful corpse-sea. Away, away from him.

All but her.

***

**_He is filled with the life-blood of doomed men,_ **

**_reddens the powers’ dwellings with ruddy gore;_ **

**_the sun-beams turn black the following summer,_ **

**_all weather woeful: do you know yet, or what?_ **

– Völuspá, 40 –

***

_Kissed. Fire. Lucky. Found._

The dew of dead men dripped from his mouth, red like his eyes. But she did not fear him. Did not scramble away, nor cower from his approach. A hot spring of joy slipped free from her eyes, as she all but fell from her saddle-beast, nearly caught up in its trappings. Weak-limbed and willowy, she staggered towards him, her grey wrappings dragging in the snow, tired breath puffing, rising up in the darkening air.

He met her embrace with an aching stab, a pain that tightened and released. Hard apple of the chest. For there was relief at having found her, but sorrow too, sorrow for what had been lost. Memories that seemed so far away from him now, locked beneath the eyes that may never see again. Within the mind-stone of a body no longer his own. A body taken, wretched from him, tracked by swords, till the wolf-wine flowed.

He wanted to howl, to sob in her hold, her soft hands wrapped around his thick furred neck, clutching tight. _Know you. Found you. Find me._ _Find me._ But he could not speak, could not cry, could never be what he once was. But he could not forget, the Wolf and the Man together, but still the Man, always the Man. _There, there,_ thrumming in his head.

Once there was a place, where the hot blood of the earth pooled, the steam rising, cavernous and dark, a place perhaps he should never have left. _Know nothing. Know nothing._ But that was the other place, the other body, the other life. The life lost. Now there was nothing left of that, nothing left of him but _her_.

Up above, the borderland of the sun had grown shadowed, pooling dark like a bruise. The storm-chaser blew down from the north, stirring the snow about their feet and rustling through the ancient trees, cracked and resinous. With a silent whine, he rubbed his cheek to hers, closed his eyes, smelt the salt. Long gone was the flame of the clouds, yet still he perceived her clearly. Clearer than before. _Kissed. Fire. Lucky. Found._

In his ear, she breathed a sound, soft as the snow.

_Ghost. Ghost. Ghost._

**Author's Note:**

> This was really fun to write, I hope you guys enjoyed it! Might add more to this, we'll see...
> 
> Nerdy Side Notes:
> 
> – So the translation for the verses of Völuspá I've used are by Andy Orchard from the Penguin Classics edition of "The Elder Edda".
> 
> – I think the similiarities between the Old Norse concept of the hamr vs the hugr and how that ties into shapeshifting bears a lot of paralells with how GRRM interprets warging in ASOIAF. I first learnt about the terms 'hamr' and 'hugr' last year in my Old Nordic Religion & Belief uni course, but there's a really good section about them, as well as many other interesting things, in Neil Price's recent (amazing!) book, The Children of Ash & Elm: a History of the Vikings, pp. 59-60:
> 
> If you met a Viking-Age Scandinavian in the street, you would have seen their hamr—her or his ‘shell’ or ‘shape’—essentially what for us is the body. Conceived as a container for other aspects of the person, the hamr was the physical manifestation of what somebody was, but, crucially, it could alter. This is where the concept of shape-changing comes from, in the sense that the actual structures of the body were believed to flow and shift. But this was not true for everyone, only for the gifted (or, perhaps, the cursed). Most people stayed as they appeared, but some, in special circumstances—on certain nights, when stressed or frightened, in anger, or at times of extreme relaxation—could become something else. 
> 
> [...]
> 
> Inside the ‘shape’ of a person was the second part of their being, the hugr, for which no modern translation really suffices. Combining elements of personality, temperament, character, and especially mind, the hugr was who someone really was, the absolute essence of you, free of all artifice or surface affect. It is the closest thing the Vikings had to the independent soul found in later world faiths, because it could leave the physical body behind.
> 
> – Before I end up filling these endnotes with more nerdy findings, I'll just say that I am in the process of writing up the 2nd part of my Old Norse/ASOIAF meta, I just got a bit waylaid by uni stuff etc [Here's a link to part 1, if anyone is interested!](https://cappymightwrite.tumblr.com/post/634254824756690944/asoiaf-norse-mythology)
> 
> Comments, as always, are very much appreciated!
> 
> Cappy x


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